


Doubt Has as Long a Tradition as Religion Itself

by bois_de_cerf



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Catholic Rosary, Gen, Religion, Roman Catholicism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 16:54:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14525082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bois_de_cerf/pseuds/bois_de_cerf
Summary: Dean Winchester has to have a complicated relationship with religion, don’t you think?





	Doubt Has as Long a Tradition as Religion Itself

There isn't a God. That’s not up for debate. If there was a God, if he was all-powerful like those Christian nuts talk about in the streets, there wouldn’t be demons. There wouldn’t be little kids with leukemia. The Winchesters wouldn’t have to hunt down all those monsters and psychos, if there was a God.  
But at the same time, it’s not like he doesn’t believe in… something. The rituals work, don’t they? And the crosses. So they’re powered by something. There’s just enough room in Dean’s knowledge that God is not real that he can pray, sometimes, and not feel like a bald-faced liar. Mostly.  
He prays for Layla. He’s prayed for Sam.  
But he doesn’t do any of the real stuff. Okay, there’s a rosary in the drawer of his bedside table, always, but he also sleeps with a knife under his pillow; the rosary isn’t any less of a weapon.   
He does, though, have all the incantations memorized. He knows the Latin like the back of his hand. It’s just how he was raised. It doesn’t mean anything.But then there’s a case of a specter possessing a priest where they have to go to Mass. The dude in white who reads from the book? His Latin sucks. Like, it’s bad. And Dean can’t get rid of the disturbing notion all day, that he speaks their language better than the believers themselves do. It’s not like he believes that crap, but the rituals are part of worship, too, right? So what does that make him.  
Somewhere in Missouri, there’s a night (morning) that Dean’s drunk too much and Sam is out too late. Dean grabs the rosary and tries to pray it, stumbling over words he doesn’t really know. He gets it back in the drawer before passing out, but only barely. In the morning, he feels both better and worse. More settled, somehow, like his skin actually fits, but he’s still not sure he likes it.  
There’s a military surplus store they go to. In the back, near the rucksacks, there are durable paracord rosaries, made for soldiers. Dean shoves it into their cart, trying to not think about what that might mean. Sam nods when he sees it. “Sturdy. Good thinking.”   
They have four rosaries in the car and they’ve only ever lost or damaged one. This one stays in his pocket. He runs his finger over the beads every time he meets some new inhuman son of a bitch, and it’s not like he prays it, but if the words run through the back of his mind as he slips the beads through his fingers, he doesn’t stop them.  
He’s still thrown for a loop when he meets angels.  
He didn’t exactly expect them to be dicks, but he’s not all that astonished either. Dean knows a fair amount of the Bible, and having multiple faces and wings sounds like a monster. Monsters are just as much dicks as humans at their best, and literally evil incarnate at their worst. Angels pretty much follow that pattern. He still can’t believe they’re real.  
And then he meets God. God, a weird, selfish bastard, a little guy in a bathrobe who doesn’t inspire even the tiniest bit of awe. Castiel is more majestic than God, and Castiel wears his tie crooked and once ate seven waffles in one sitting.  
The rosary still works.  
Holy water still burns demons.  
He guesses maybe it’s not good versus evil. Maybe it’s that demons are pretty powerful, and you fight a lot of power with even more power. Even if it’s not pure. Even if it’s not right.  
He still carries the soldier’s rosary, the words running through the back of his mind.


End file.
